SF pier project moves massive steel building frame as...

1of7Developer Forest City of the Pier 70 waterfront finishes a complete move of a 153 ton building frame some 200 feet at a historic shipyard property on Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018 in San Francisco, Calif. Building 15 is where massive WWII ship hull panels made of steel were staged during ship construction.Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle

2of7The massive steel frame was moved on wheels for a development project at the shipyard where World War II ship hulls once were stored.Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle

3of7Development director Tim Bacon and his son Cal Bacon, 7, watch the steel frame moved 200 feet for its new role at the Pier 70 housing and mixed-use project.Photo: Photos by Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle

4of7Workers slide the massive building frame on giant dollies to its new location at the Pier 70 waterfront site where a mixed-use development project is under way.Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle

5of7Safety engineer Edward Garcia works at Pier 70 where the 153-ton building frame seen behind him will be placed at the historic shipyard that is being turned into a multi-use development.Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle

6of7Friends and family of construction workers for developer Forest City watch at Pier 70 where a 153-ton steel building frame is moved some 200 feet to make room for a development project.Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle

7of7Stands are placed where a 153-ton building frame will be placed at a historic shipyard property on Pier 70 in San Francisco.Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle

How do you move something 200 feet that is as heavy as a blue whale or 150 Volkswagen Beetles?

That question — and the prospect it might be answered — was enough to draw a crowd Wednesday morning to Pier 70, where the developer Forest City is in the process of developing a mixed-use project with at least 1,600 homes, 9 acres of parkland and more than 1 million square feet of commercial space.

The object that had to be moved was the steel frame of Building 15, one of the historic structures that will be mixed in with new construction at the old shipyard. The frame will be a decorative centerpiece of the new neighborhood, the gateway of an extended 22nd Street that will connect Dogpatch to the waterfront.

At 153.5 tons, the frame isn’t something that could be moved easily; it couldn’t exactly be loaded onto a flatbed truck for a ride or picked up by a crane and swung through the air.

Construction workers for developer Forest City reset the rigging for the Pier 70 move of a 153 ton building frame in San Francisco.

Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle

That was the quandary executives from Plant Construction spent six months wrestling with as they came up with a plan, said Michael Tzortzis, vice president of construction.

Working with Silverado Contractors and Mammoet — both specialists in moving giant objects — Tzortzis and his team thought about various options. They looked into breaking the frame down into either three or 100 pieces and then reassembling it.

Finally they decided that the most efficient approach — and the one most likely to allow it to retain its historic integrity — was to simply roll it 200 feet to the south and leave it there during the 18 months it will take to build 22nd Street.

To do that, they first had to strengthen the frame with new steel beams, then hoist it onto 16 dollies, each with eight wheels.

Forest City project manager Jack Sylvan called it the “world’s biggest roller skate.”

In its previous life, during the dark days of World War II, Pier 70’s Building 15 was more workhorse than show horse. It was a place steel panels of ship hulls were stored before being rolled out to the slipway for assemblage.

But in the new vision for the mixed-use development at Pier 70, the building’s massive steel frame will play a leading role, as pedestrians, cyclists and motorists traveling to and from the pier will pass through the it.

So on Wednesday, a lot of construction workers and engineers, many with kids in tow, showed up to see the frame moved. There was a countdown from 10 and the theme song from “Chariots of Fire” was played.

“I thought it was kind of crazy that they figured out how to move something as heavy as 18 African elephants,” said Beckham Arnold, 12, whose father, Nathan Arnold, was part of the development team.

What did it take to pull the frame — pull it very slowly — 200 feet to its new location? Two giant red excavators tugging at it with heavy chains.

And as for the “world’s biggest roller skate,” as Sylvan called it?

“It really is a cheap PR stunt,” joked Sylvan. “People won’t show up to see you disassemble a building. But they will if you put it on the world’s biggest roller skate.”

Where Building 15 stood Wednesday morning, workers will stack between five and 10 feet of new soil before they start building structures, a necessary upgrade to account for expected sea level rise over the next decades.

J.K. Dineen joined the San Francisco Chronicle in 2014, focusing on real estate development for the metro group, a beat that includes land use, housing, neighborhoods, the port, retail, and city parks. Prior to joining The Chronicle, he worked for the San Francisco Business Times, the San Francisco Examiner, the New York Daily News, and a bunch of newspapers in his native Massachusetts, including the Salem Evening News and the MetroWest Daily News.

He is the author of two books: Here Tomorrow, about historic preservation in California (Heyday, 2013); and the forthcoming High Spirits (Heyday 2015), a book of essays about legacy bars of San Francisco.

A graduate of Macalester College, Dineen was a member of Teach For America’s inaugural class and taught sixth grade in Brooklyn, N.Y.